Identifying and illuminating live Grateful Dead shows (and shows by band members) that are unknown or poorly documented.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Grateful Dead Tour Itinerary March-April 1968

I have been constructing tour itineraries for the Grateful Dead for brief periods of their history. There is so much information circulating on websites and blogs (including my own) that go beyond published lists on Deadlists and Dead.net that these posts make useful forums for discussing what is known and missing during each period. So far I have reviewed

Rather than go in strictly chronological order, I am focusing on periods where recent research has been done by myself or others. Over time I hope to have the entire 1965-70 period. My principal focus here is on identifying which dates have Grateful Dead shows, which dates might have Grateful Dead shows, and which dates are in dispute or may be of interest. Where relevant, I am focusing on live appearances by other members--mostly Jerry Garcia, as a practical matter--in order to get an accurate timeline.

What follows is a list of known Grateful Dead performance dates for March and April 1968. I am focused on which performances occurred when, rather than the performances themselves. For known performances, I have assumed that they are easy to assess on Deadlists, The Archive and elsewhere, and have made little comment. As a point of comparison, I am comparing my list to Deadlists, but I realize that different databases may include or exclude different dates (I am not considering recording dates, interviews or Television and radio broadcast dates in this context).

My working assumption is that the Grateful Dead, while already a legendary rock band in 1968, were living hand to mouth and scrambling to find paying gigs. Even by 1968, most paying performances were on Friday and Saturday nights, so I am particularly interested in Friday and Saturday nights where no Grateful Dead performances were scheduled or known.

I have linked to existing posters where available.

March 1-2, 1968 Looking Glass, Walnut Creek, CA Grateful Dead
This event and venue are the most mysterious of this time period. Lewis Carroll was considered "psychedelic" at the time, so a coffee house, nightclub or venue with a name like "Looking Glass" would seem to be a Grateful Dead-friendly establishment. Nonetheless, I know nothing about any such place in Walnut Creek beyond this reference from Deadbase. I know of no tape, eyewitness account or poster from this show, nor any other reference to a rock club in Walnut Creek.

Walnut Creek is in Contra Costa County, just over the hill from Berkeley. However, it was a sleepy town at the time--there will still walnut trees there--and the County was not particularly friendly to hippies or anything associated with them. My guess is that The Looking Glass was an effort to start some sort of psychedelic outpost in Contra Costa that was shut down almost immediately--whether by permit problems, police harassment or just financial inadvisability.

[update] Apparently the address of The Looking Glass was 1300 Boulevard Way in Walnut Creek, still a valid address. This leads me to think there was a long-lost flyer that generated this date. I can't help but think that this was a booked date that never occurred, because the venue never opened.

March 3, 1968 Haight Street Fair Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead had moved to 710 Ashbury in about September 1966, but the neighborhood had declined and the Dead had become a tourist attraction. Various entities persuaded the city to block off Haight Street for a few blocks and have a Sunday afternoon party, which was the genesis of today's Haight Street Fair. The Dead had already effectively moved out of 710 by this time, so irritating the City was not a concern (although perhaps it was a goal). After promising not to play, the Dead arranged to have two flatbed trucks back up to each other, and with a ready made stage the band had an impromptu hour-long show as a goodbye to Haight Street.

The show was taped, although the taper's batteries ran out. I have read that the batteries ran out because they had been used to tape Cream at Winterland the night before.

Deadlists shows the Grateful Dead performing on March 7, 1968 outside of San Quentin, but Ross has persuasively argued elsewhere that the actual date was February 15, 1968. March 7 is not impossible, but I don't know of any confirmation of a second show.

March 8-9, 1968 Melodyland Theater, Disneyland, Anaheim, CA Jefferson Airplane & Friends
The Jefferson Airplane "and Friends" were billed at the Melodyland Theater in Disneyland. The "Friends" turned out to be the Grateful Dead. I assume that the show was booked with the idea that another San Francisco band would join the Airplane, but it hadn't been determined who it would be. I doubt there was anything secretive or special about the Dead not being advertised in advance.

Melodyland regularly had name entertainers. Disneyland made a few stabs at being hip, and gave it up. There were early and late shows on Saturday March 9.

Tom Constanten sat in with the Dead for this show, per his website. TC was still in the Air Force at the time, based in Nevada, and made appearances when he could.

March 15-16, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA Jefferson Airplane/Grateful DeadMarch 17, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA Grateful Dead/Blue Cheer
The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and The Holding Company and Jefferson Airplane had decided they were letting concert promoters make too much money off them, and banded together to open their own place. As a result, none of those bands played Bill Graham's Fillmore nor Chet Helms's Avalon during the first half of 1968, as they were competitors. Old age and revisionism caused everyone to conveniently forget the fact that Bill Graham (and Chet Helms) and the bands were dueling with each other, and Graham won. While I don't think band members personally disliked Bill (or Chet) they weren't necessarily enamored of promoter's business practices either.

The Dead effectively ran the Carousel, as the other bands only provided finance and played some gigs. The Carousel operation was professionally unwise from beginning to end, showing that Graham and Helms did bring something to the table, even if it wasn't always overtly apparent. This was the Dead's third booking at the Carousel. The first was the debut on January 17, then the famous Valentine's show on February 14, and then this weekend. This weekend was the Airplane's debut at the Carousel. For the final night (Sunday March 17), Blue Cheer was booked instead of the Airplane.

Part of the March 17 show was released in 2005 as Volume 6 of the Grateful Dead's Download Series.

March 18, 1968 Pier 10, Washington and Embarcadero Streets, San Francisco, CA KMPX Strike Rally Traffic with Jerry Garcia/others
KMPX-fm was the first underground FM rock station, and it was critical in promoting the new rock bands. When the staff went on strike, all the bands supported them. The strike began at 3am on Monday March 18. The station was at 50 Green Street, and a flatbed truck was set up nearby at Green and Embarcadero to allow bands to perform in support of the strikers. Creedence Clearwater Revival were very proud of being the first on at 3am, although that was too noisy for the neighborhood and the cops shut that down. The Grateful Dead may have been planning to play, having come over after their Carousel show, but it was not to be.

Around 9 am, however, the music started up again at Pier 10, near Washington and Embarcadero. San Francisco has always been a pro-Union town, and the cops would not hassle a strike, so the bands were free to play. In any case, they were far from any residential area.

March 20, 1968 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, CA KMPX Strike Benefit
There were a number of events in support of the KMPX strike (and the strike of its sister station, KPPC in Pasadena). One of the first events was a benefit for striking staff at the Avalon on Wednesday, March 20. Although the Grateful Dead are reputed to have played this show, I have never seen confirmation, and in fact I do not have any idea who played.

I am not at all ruling out that the Grateful Dead played; they very likely did. However, given that they played the Green Street event (March 18 above) and the Winterland show (April 3), there is an historic tendency to lump all the shows together. I'm not taking this show off the list, but it still stands as "unproven" in my mind. Update: Jef Jaisun mentions the Dead's performance in a Berkeley Barb article, so I am now treating this show is now confirmed.

The poster for this show features two shows at the much larger Michigan State Fairgrounds Coliseum (1120 W. State Fair Avenue, Detroit, MI). The Coliseum, built in 1922, had a capacity of 5,600. The idea was that Eric Burdon plus the Dead would bring a much larger audience than the Grande could hold, so the shows were booked at the much larger Fairgrounds Pavilion. In fact, however, the shows did not sell that well, and the second night was moved back to the Grande.

Eire Apparent were an Irish band associated with Mike Jeffereys, who managed both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Burdon. The Apostles and Rationals were Detroit bands.

March 23, 1968 Grande Ballroom, Detroit, MI Eric Burdon and The Animals/Eire Apparent/Apostles/The Rationals--Dead cancel
After the poor attendance at the Fairgrounds, the show was returned to the smaller Grande Ballroom. Animal guitarist Vic Briggs clearly recalls that the Dead went home on Saturday and did not play the Grande.

The Grande Ballroom, at 8952 Grand River Avenue, had been built in 1928. Its story is too long to tell here, but it's a great one. Since Russ Gibb closed the Grande in 1972, however, the building has remained dormant.

James "Curly" Cook, from Madison, WI had come out to California in late 1966 to join the Steve Miller Band. He fell ill in mid-1967, however, and was replaced by Boz Scaggs. Cook returned to action with his own band in 1968, although the only other member that I know was bassist Doug Kilmer. Per common practice, I assume Curly Cook's band backed Chuck Berry for his set.

Many years ago, Bob Weir said that he learned the song "Me and My Uncle" in 1966 from "a hippie named Curly Jim." Grateful Dead scholars (including me) assumed that he meant that he learned the song from Curly Cook. A person who was there at the time, however, swears that there was an entirely different person on the scene named Curly Jim. She knew Curly Cook as well, and even sent me a picture of Curly Jim, standing on the steps of 710 Ashbury, but she doesn't remember his last name. Make of this what you will.

April 3, 1968 Winterland, San Francisco, CAElectric Flag/Grateful Dead/Moby Grape/Mother Earth/Youngbloods/It's A Beautiful Day"Super Ball" KMPX First Birthday Benefit
KMPX-fm had begun broadcasting rock music 24 hours a day in April, 1967, so calling this a "First Birthday" was accurate, although the first rock music on KMPX was actually broadcast from midnight to 6:00 am on February 12. This Wednesday night event at the largest arena in town (Winterland's capacity was 5,500) was a substantial event. The Electric Flag and Moby Grape were both high profile bands, as were the Dead, and Mother Earth, The Youngboods and It's A Beautiful Day all had local followings as well. The ticket price was $5.00, high for the era, and a sign that the event was a significant fundraiser. I assume the Dead only played one set, since there were at least six bands. Its worth noting however, that I am not yet aware of any eyewitness, tape or review of the Dead's appearance. Ross noted in the Comments that various groups (including the Dead) were invited but had not yet confirmed.

The Grateful Dead have no scheduled activity that I am aware of for the weekend of April 5-7. I assume that they were finishing Anthem Of The Sun at the time, although I don't know that for an absolute fact. Its possible that there might be at least one show for this weekend. It was pointed out in the Comments, however, that the Dead had scheduled some time at Criteria Studios in Miami, in order to work on Anthem. The exact timing of the studio work--where apparently little was accomplished--is unknown, but it explains the subsequent trip to Miami.

Blues Image were originally from Tampa, FL (and known as The Motions), but they moved to Miami to get more exposure. They helped run Thee Image, and acted as the house band, playing most nights. Blues Image had two drummers, but came to the idea on their own in the wilds of Florida. They were apparently an excellent band live, and their ok-but-not-great albums supposedly did not do them justice. They moved to Los Angeles in late 1968, and did have a big hit with "Ride Captain Ride" in 1970. [not on Deadlists]

April 14, 1968 Greynolds Park, Miami, FL Grateful Dead/Blues Image
The Dead and Blues Image held a "Love In" at a park near Thee Image on Sunday afternoon. Greynolds Park was at 17530 West Dixie Highway in North Miami Beach. The event was reported by the National wire services. The Dead were always willing to "break in" new territory by playing a free show to attract attention to their paid events. [not on Deadlists]

April 26-28, 1968 Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA Grateful Dead
Philadelphia was one of the largest markets in the country, but it took a little while for a psychedelic rock scene to develop. After various smaller venues sputtered in 1967 (The Trauma at 2121 Arch and the Kaleidoscope in Manayunk), the Spivak brothers and Larry Magid opened the Electric Factory in a former tire warehouse at 2201 Arch Street. Electric Factory opened in February 1968 with the Chambers Brothers, and it presented all the top acts of the 1960s. Electric Factory was the biggest rock promoter in Philadelphia for many decades, and is now part of LiveNation.

Rock Scully has an hysterical story in his book about this Grateful Dead's appearance at the Electric Factory (pp. 145-47), as the band was offered free accommodations in a hotel above a blues bar for the weekend. When the band arrives, however, they discover they will be spending the weekend in a house of prostitution. All but Pigpen are completely unsettled--Pigpen spends the weekend hanging out at the blues bar--and Rock has to scramble to find students willing to put the band up for the weekend. The interesting note in his story was that the band would have no money for another hotel until they played the shows, a sharp indicator of the hand-to-mouth touring in the 60s.

Incidentally, the Grateful Dead played for the Electric Factory promoters the next year, and more or less continuously for the balance of their career, so any misunderstandings seem to have been resolved. I have to assume they got to stay in hotels on later trips.

20 comments:

Bruno, I saw the listing in Deadbase, and I find it completely unconvincing. Some kid found his Mom's diary, and she saw the Dead at Melodyland, and somehow Tuesday March 26 is a valid date, when the Dead played three shows there two weeks earlier? I don't buy it without other evidence.

Anything's possible, of course, but this has the look of something that has been on the list for a long time without really having any support.

3-11-68 - Deadbase notes that Tom Constanten played with the Dead at this show. (It would have been his first that I've heard of.) Don't know what their source was - but it's not as implausible as it might seem at first, as TC was using his leaves from the air force to join the Dead for recording in the studio around this time.

3-26-68 - Dead.net strangely lists two shows for this date, one for the Carousel & one at Melodyland. Bizarre & improbable. (Though I can think of one date where they apparently played two cities in one day, 5-3-69.) Deadlists prefers the "unknown venue".Even more interesting, there's also a review for their Melodyland entry ( http://www.dead.net/show/march-26-1968 ) - fishy & worthless as evidence, I know - from someone claiming he saw the Dead & Airplane here. I think he would have seen one of the March 8/9 shows, and there was no 3-26 show. (Was the Airplane playing anywhere this date?) The plot thickens with an audience tape labeled with this date... Personally I suspect it goes with the series of poorly-labeled Carousel audience tapes from the end of the month.

4-19-68 - The "held over" notice on the poster raises many questions of its own. Looks like the Dead went over well. Presumably, when the Dead were booked for the April 12-14 shows, they didn't plan to still be in Miami the next weekend; and presumably, they also didn't have any other plans that couldn't be canceled! With no other shows we know of until Philadelphia on the 26th, I wonder if they flew home during the week, or just roamed around Florida? Considering their cash-strapped state once they got to Philadelphia, I'm not sure what the logistics would've been. There could be other 'lost' shows somewhere in the distant East during this second half of April.

And a very minor correction - the April 19-21 shows are listed in deadlists. (But the April 14 "Love-In", of course isn't.)

I hadn't considered the implications of the second week in Florida, with respect to the idea that there might have been a canceled show. One thing about Miami, as near as I can tell, is that there wouldn't have been nearly as many potential places to even schedule a show, compared to Portland or Philly. Where did the Dead even think they were going to play on April 19-21? And was there anywhere in Florida safe for a stealth gig (and I don't mean metaphorically)?

Of course, it would explain how broke they were in Philadelphia. The band had an April 12-14 show in Miami, and then another scheduled weekend that was canceled, so they stayed in Miami. I would have to look farther North--Virginia, DC, somewhere like that. hmm...

This is skipping ahead to May, but they did play a show on May 12 at Virginia Beach, after finishing their week in NYC. This struck me as quite a random place to play - I wonder how many people there would have been familiar with this SF band with one year-old record? (Deadlists shows the flyer: "Direct from San Francisco...")

There's a review on setlists.net, for what it's worth: "The "Dome" (Alan B. Shepard Civic Center) was pretty cool looking on the outside, but an acoustical nightmare within. I suspect the Dead were less than impressed and I remember leaving that night thinking that my garage band sounded better than these guys. Interesting note: The tickets for this date had been printed for a group called "Soul Survivors". Apparently, they were unable to appear and the GD got booked as a substitution. I still have that ticket stub, as well as a promo flyer announcing the GD concert. Price was $4.50!"

In any event, I've also seen a comment from a guy who was in the band who opened for the Dead, Wild Kingdom (he was their lead guitarist, Mike Johnstone) - interestingly, he remembers the show being at Peabody's Warehouse in Virginia Beach."I was once deemed "too high to jam with the Dead" by Jerry Garcia himself back one summer night in 1968 when, as a self-absorbed 21 year old lead guitarist in the opening band, I was invited to join them onstage. After an acid-inspired atonal improvisation, Jerry asked me to unplug and sit down. I was seriously bummed."

And one more thing - Browsing through the Dead posters on this site - http://www.sixtiesposters.com/deadpage1.htm - I see a couple that are relevant to this post. Might be worth linking to, if they're real.

There's a poster noting the Dead's FIRST weekend at Thee Image: http://www.sixtiesposters.com/images/dead_miami.jpg And there's a poster for a hitherto unsuspected show on Sunday, March 24, in Grand Rapids, MI: http://www.sixtiesposters.com/images/aor3.151.jpg Don't know if it's real, but the date & place fit in perfectly.

(And, though it's not in this time period, I also noticed the poster for the 11-15-68 Corvallis show, which you covered in another post...)

Oops - scratch that Grand Rapids show. After a moment's research, I realize it wasn't played. As one person comments on dead.net, though the Dead were scheduled to play at Fountain Street Church, "unfortunately the show was cancelled due to a fierce snowstorm. They played in Detroit just before this and it was deemed unsafe to drive the 150 miles to Grand Rapids in this weather, so no show."

However, this makes me wonder if you should also mention cancelled shows in your tour itineraries, for completeness' sake?

I've also seen that Tom Constanten noted the 3-11-68 show in his tour chronology, and that you've already written a post speculating about his prior show with the Dead in Las Vegas, Sept '67.... Reminds me to do my homework before I write these comments!

Another point about the Dead's stay in Miami - McNally's book mentions that the Dead worked on the Anthem album at Miami's Criteria Studios (but didn't accomplish much). As usual, he doesn't specify dates.

Aside from demonstrating how the band hopped from one studio to another in their quest for Anthem, perhaps this indicates that their long stay in Miami was planned. They may have gotten that second weekend of shows at Thee Image because they were going to be in town anyway....

"Anthem of the Sun is really the performance of an eight-track tape; Phil and I performed it and it would be like four hands and sometimes Healy would have a hand in. We'd be there hovering around the boards in these various places at Criteria Studios, Miami, and in New York" (Garcia, Reich and Wenner 2003/1972, 64).

Has anybody been into the Miami local of the American Federation of Musicians to ask about what kind of paperwork they might have? In principle, Warner Brothers-funded time at Criteria would have had to involved union paperwork. But maybe things were faster and looser than I would have thought, I am certainly no expert on that sort of thing.

March 1-2, 1968 - 1300 Boulevard Way, Walnut Creek – I agree that this is mysterious but it has been known for a quite a long time. I always thought that it may be rehearsals, as the private party concept is weakened by a second day. I have hunted around to no avail for any further details.

March 8-9, 1968 – Melodyland, Anaheim, CA – I must admit that these shows were not known to me until I read your post. There is an LA Blog (with incomplete show listings) that does have some details on Melodyland: http://gogonotes.blogspot.com/2010/03/melodyland.html

March 26, 1968 – I have nothing listed for this date for the Grateful Dead and certainly nothing for the Carousel Ballroom – which was typically well advertised. I have checked the press for that week and nothing appears.

April 3, 1968 - Winterland, San Francisco, CA – Just out of interest: the Berkeley Barb (March 24 to April 4, 1968) reports “Although there are no set conformations, invitations to play have gone out to the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and The Holding Company, The Doors, Judy Collins, Eric Burdon and The Animals and the Quicksilver Messenger Service.

I integrated all these great comments into the post. I had no idea about Criteria Studios--that explains a lot--and I couldn't put my finger on the March 24 show, as I kept thinking it was an Eric Burdon show.

My general idea for these itineraries is that I am very interested in canceled shows, as they tell a lot about the band's plans, even though they never actually occurred. Conversely, I am generally ignoring dates that only "exist" because of taper transcription errors or other hiccups in the historical record.

I recognize that for tracking the lineage of tapes, its important to keep the "stated" dates of tapes in mind, but I am focused on the actual shows rather than the history of recordings, a subject handled very well on Deadlists and elsewhere.

"there was an entirely different person on the scene named Curly Jim. She knew Curly Cook as well, and even sent me a picture of Curly Jim, standing on the steps of 710 Ashbury, but she doesn't remember his last name. Make of this what you will."

Gene Anthony,The Summer of Love: Haight-Ashbury At Its Highest (Millbrae, CA: Celestial Arts, 1980), p. 101, has a photo of Danny Rifkin and Curly Jim. Photo seems to be credited to Gene Anthony.

I have been in touch with Antion Meredith, better known as Vic Briggs when he was lead guitarist for Eric Burdon and The Animals. He is quite sure that after the financial debacle of the March 22 show at the Fairgounds, the Dead returned to San Francisco on Saturday and did not play the Grande on March 23.

If there was an impending blizzard, it would help account for the poor attendance at the Fairgounds and the urgency to get out of town, since the free concert on March 24 wasn't going to happen anyway.

The new release Road Trips: Vol 4, Number 1: Big Rock Pow Wow 69 has this introduction by an unknown-to-me speaker on disc one (from Friday, May 23, 1969: "Air date of, 1968, Easter. The first group to ever play at the Love-In in East Greynolds Park was the Grateful Dead. They're the ones who blessed East Greynolds Park. And they're back with us. We basically started off just having a concert with the Grateful Dead, and we wound up with a whole festival. So, here they are: the best group in the universe, musicians' musicians, the dynamic, electronic, Grateful Dead!"

Thanks for the info on the Dead at Melodyland Theatre in 1968. I was there when they opened for the Airplane. I was 13 and my friend drove me down from West L.A. to see the Airplane. We loved them at the time. They did stuff off "After Bathing at Baxters" and "Crown of Creation." We were there on a Saturday night when the Grateful Dead opened. I hadn't really heard of them. I only remember China Cat Sunflower because it was a catchy song. Bob Weir had long hair and looked young. The stage was in the round and slowly turned like a Lazy Susan on valium. I wouldn't see the Dead again until 1972 at the Hollywood Palladium. By them I was hooked. David Crosby played most the show with them. At Melodyland, they sold cool programs with lots of color pictures of the Airplane. I might still have it with all my other "stuff" somewhere in the garage.